BIO

Norwood caught just a glimpse of Arthur Cudmore's football talents before he embarked on a distinguished medical career, capped by a knighthood for his service in peacetime and two world wars. Arthur was born on 11 June 1870 at the Paringa sheep station on the River Murray, the son of James Cudmore and his wife Margaret (née) Bridge.  He was educated at Whinham College, St Peter's College and the University of Adelaide, where he graduated in medicine in 1894.

As a 176 cm full back at St Peter's he defended his goal in good style in the 1893 intercollegiate match but Prince Alfred nevertheless carried the day, 5.10 to 3.8.

Arthur played three games for Norwood in 1894.  In his debut game, South Adelaide came back strongly in the second half to win by six goals. Norwood thrashed lowly North Adelaide and then turned the tables on South with a 9.6 to 5.11 victory.  It was a masterly display of the form which would culminate in the premiership - but Arthur missed all that.

After five years of post-graduate study in the UK, where he worked at the London Hospital and St Mark's Hospital , he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1899.  In 1901 he married Kathleen, daughter of Wentworth and Ellen Cavenagh Mainwaring, of Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire.*

Arthur was a consulting surgeon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for 21 years up to 1925 and a lecturer in clinical surgery at the university.  In World War I, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he served as consulting surgeon to the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Gallipoli and Lemnos until he was invalidated home with typhus in 1916.  In August 1918 he returned to the AIF in the UK and France for nearly 12 more months. His batman would achieve fame as the brain surgeon Sir Hugh Cairns.

After the war Arthur was consulting surgeon to the Australian Army Medical Corps reserve and in World War II he was chief surgeon at No 7 AGH, Keswick. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1936 and a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours of 1945. He helped found the Dental School and served as Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry and president of the Dental Board.  He was elected to the University Council in 1927.  He was president of the Medical Board of SA in 1938.  He also helped found the Royal Automobile Association of SA and was elected president in 1935.  He was president of the Royal Adelaide Golf Club in 1925-27.  His favourite amusement was duck and quail shooting.

Sir Arthur Cudmore, 80, died in Adelaide on 27 February 1951 and his wife nine days later.  They had two daughters, Rosemary, who married her cousin, Rafe Cavenagh Mainwaring, and Kathleen, wife of Geoffrey Champion de Crespigny and later of Major-General George Symes, CB, MC & Bar.

* Wentworth Cavenagh, MP for Yatala in the SA Parliament for 20 years, added his wife's surname of Mainwaring to his own when she inherited Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire

P Robins March 2019